Why are iPhone cameras so shitty?

It seems all of my pictures turn out super low-res, is there anything I can do to take better pictures?

"is there anything I can do to take better pictures?"
buy a camera
reason? You said it in your headline question.

Samll sensor, just pick up a cheap decent camera

Actually, I'm pretty impressed with the iPhone camera. It has to be the iPhone 4 or later.

In order to make good pictures with it, you have to recognize its limitations. It has a small sensor size but it is still 5 or 8 megapixels, which is as good as a midrange or professional camera even five years ago.

The small sensor size means that it is not as sensitive to light. So iPhones are best used in bright sunlight. The flash washes everything out and isn't enough to compensate. Even adequate room lighting isn't enough--it has to be industrial lighting or higher. Images will be very noisy and grainy if there isn't enough light.

They also take some time to expose the sensor in low light and do it by scanning. This means that it is easy to blur the pictures from motion and it will be like 'jello' because of the scan lines.

Finally, make sure you don't have finger prints on the lens.

My avatar photo was taken with an iPhone 4, and it looks fine even at full screen.

Your problem originates from the fact that you are trying to take pictures with a phone and not a camera.

Phone camera sensor size - 1/6", or about 4sq mm.

DSLR camera sensor size (it varies) - 36x24mm, or about 864 sq mm.

So a DSLR has up to 200 times larger sensors. Yea, that would do it.

And the lenses. DSLRs have high quality optical glass; phone cameras… I dunno, maybe they use a stuffed animal eye for a lens.

Here is a typcial 1/6" format camera that is used in phones - they cost $10. How good of a camera are you going to get for $10.

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8667